


Snapshots

by lilapollomoved



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Marquis de Lafayette, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, gender discovery, the "character development" fic, trans alexander
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 10:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9176497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilapollomoved/pseuds/lilapollomoved
Summary: A series of moments from Alexander Hamilton's life starting from his final foster home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hey i wrote this at 2 am  
> rachel is alexander's deadname. i figured it fit bc lotsa people were named after their parents back then and also i couldnt think of any others  
> alex was very sheltered growing up and therefore doesnt initially know about being trans/nb and pronouns and such. the first part is more through his eyes hence the way he thinks of laf in the beginning + referring to himself as his deadname/pronouns  
> \---  
> abuse is mentioned !!! be safe

**1.**  


Rachel wrung her hands in the edge of her skirt, not daring to meet her new “family” in the eyes. This was the sixth family she’d gone through, what was going to make them any different from the other five? She was in her Sunday best, which also counted for Monday, Tuesday, and so on. The faded murky-green dress was the only nice thing she owned.

“Rachel?” the tall, imposing man in front of her asked. He looked like he could easily incapacitate her; she was a good judge from experience. She didn’t lift her head, all to conscious of the potential threat. “Rachel, come on inside. I’d like you to meet Martha and your new sibling.”

Sibling? Why couldn’t he just say brother or sister? If he did, she’d have a better chance to guess how much he or she could hurt her. She kept her head down as she followed her new, undoubtedly temporary father into a house that had to have cost at least $1 million. She reckoned that was even on the low end. 

“Oh, is this Rachel?” a woman’s voice spoke, probably the aforementioned Martha, “Oh, she’s even lovelier in person. Would you like a glass of milk?” she asked, all smiles and kindness. Rachel knew it wouldn’t last. It never did. She was 14 and she’d seen hell too many times to count. Father gone, mother dead, home destroyed. Five foster homes, Five disasters. She had nothing else to live for.

“No, ma’am.” She’d replied, head bowed and back hunched. She wanted to shrink into the nearest corner and let the family forget she was even there. Martha, on the other hand, had other ideas.

“How about some water, then. You must be parched from your trip- all the way from Indiana in that rickety old excuse for a truck.” she seemed upset and handed Rachel a glass of water, fretful expression on her face. Rachel muttered a quiet “thank you ma’am” and shrank into herself farther.

“Now, we’ll have none of that yes ma’am, no ma’am business, young lady. You can call me ma, mom, or Martha, but I hardly think I’m old enough to be ma’am.” She smiled kindly and leaned down to Rachel’s level as she did so. There was pity in her eyes. Ah, she must know, then, Rachel thought. She’d read the papers. Past physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. She’d probably be better off to have it tattooed on her forehead with the amount of times it’d been read by potential foster homes. She was broken. A mess. A mess nobody wanted to clean up.

Rachel sipped her water, standing a bit obtrusively in the middle of the kitchen. Down the hall, she heard excited talking in some kind of accent she couldn’t discern along with not-dad’s surprisingly mellow voice. For a man of his stature, he sounded incredibly calm. A ruse, she was sure.

“Ah, there she is,” he- George, she remembered, cut off the other person mid sentence and gestured at the depressing lump that was Rachel Hamilton. “Your new sister.”

Rachel shot her gaze up from the glass in her hand to the boy- girl? bounding towards her excitedly. He, she, whatever, didn’t look to be much older than Rachel herself. S/he grinned widely and took the glass from Rachel, placing it on the counter next to them.

“Hello!” the person greeted, all smiles and dimples and bright eyes. “My name is Lafayette- well, no, that is not true, but you may call me Lafayette!” Rachel just nodded, unable to formulate a response. “Ah, you are probably wondering what it is I am.” another nod, “The answer is, I am not!”

Rachel knitted her brows together in confusion and a little bit of undisguised intrigue. Lafayette smiled impossibly wider and took Rachel’s hands. “I am not, which is to say, I do not have a gender.” This only confused Rachel more. Of course you have a gender, one or the other. That’s what she’d been told her whole life, at least. It’s what’s in your pants that matters, anyway.

At Rachel’s dumbfounded expression, Lafayette’s eyes softened a bit. “Come, I will explain it to you.” Lafayette led her to the den and sat her down on the couch and began a loquacious lecture about gender and nonconformity and something, _something_ inside Rachel stirred.

 **2.**  


Life with George, Martha, and Lafayette was miraculously proving to be not at all what Rachel expected. She was never hit, never yelled at, never ordered to do things. She had even been given a cell phone with a cute little green parrot case and several affectionate texts a day from either foster parent. She got notes in her lunchbox and cards in her locker from Lafayette.

Lafayette, as she’d learned and through much trial and error perfected, used they/them pronouns, something she’d never even heard of or considered. She’d also learned that people could not have a gender, which was something that took her a good month to comprehend. Lafayette was patient with her and forgiving of mistakes and accidental slip-ups.

She’d met Lafayette’s friends, and by friends they apparently meant boyfriends. John and Hercules made fast friends with Rachel, nicknaming her “princess” among other things. She couldn't quite put her finger on why, but that bothered her. She made sure to tell Lafayette about it and the trio immediately stopped.

Sophomore year, as she’d learned, was a new kind of hell. High school in general was pretty awful, but she’d learned fast that when you remind somebody that you’re the president’s daughter, they shut up real quick. Another thing she’d learned, oh, right, _she was the freaking president’s daughter_. The entirety of her history class had laughed at her when she didn’t know who was president- how was she supposed to know? For the last few years of her life, she’d been living off what her foster families decided to let her know.

One person who she always seemed to be at strife with was Thomas Jefferson. He was, debatably, the most attractive senior high-schooler in New York City, and, undebatably, the biggest raving douchebag thereof. His opinions clashed with Rachel’s harsher than polkadots and stripes. They verbally mutilated each other in debates, shooting down each and every point as it came up, countering every rebuttal. Rachel would be lying if she said she wasn’t invigorated by the energy that crackled between them. Lafayette saw it as something more but kept that information between them and their boyfriends. 

When Thomas Jefferson chose to bring up a gender debate, Rachel found herself without ammunition. She couldn’t find it in herself to respond on behalf of the female student body, so she left the debate to Angelica Schuyler instead. There was a feeling deep in the pit of her stomach that told her something wasn’t right with her. She needed to talk to Lafayette.

**3.**

Alexander Hamilton-Washington. God, he couldn’t help how amazing it felt to say that name. He. _He_. He was a senior now, sitting comfortably at the top of the totem pole with Lafayette and their boyfriends and the two oldest Schuyler sisters. His name had been legally changed the second he was sure he wanted it to be, he had all his girl clothes donated to charity and a whole new wardrobe of men’s clothing to choose from along with some binders and the proposition for a haircut which he turned down. After all these years, he was finally comfortable, and while he wasn’t exactly confident in himself, he could say for certain that he was more able to be himself.

Graduation was looming over the seniors like a curse. Of course, Alexander and his friends had applied and committed to colleges the second they were able. Alexander had a full ride scholarship to Columbia University. John was headed for Harvard and Hercules to Parsons. Lafayette was going to travel back to France for a year with Angelica tagging along. Eliza elected to stay and attend a smaller college somewhere in New Jersey. 

Thomas Jefferson, he’d heard, was at some fancy business school across the country with James Madison. People predicted that he was going to be president one day. Alexander just laughed, fully convinced he could do it but not willing to let anybody know he knew that.

When they finally graduated, the group of them all went down to the beach and stayed at a Schuyler estate. Eliza, and Angelica, and Lafayette, and John, and Hercules, and _Alexander_.

**4.**

Of all people, Alexander never thought he’d see Thomas Jefferson at Eliza and Maria Schuyler’s wedding. The men, now in their mid-twenties, shared a look of incredulousness as they struggled to recognize each other.

“Rachel Hamilton?” Thomas asked, unmasked uncertainty in his voice.

“It’s Alexander, now.” Alexander corrected as he sipped his wine anxiously. He hoped that the implications were explicit enough with just those three words. After a moment, Thomas nodded in understanding. His smile was friendly and genuine. Not pitying. Not condescending. Just _real_.

The pair didn’t stray far from each other, though Alexander stomped off in a rage when Thomas dared to suggest that John Adams of all people would make a good president. He was quick to return soon after with a plate of hors d'oeuvres and two more glasses of wine precariously held in one hand. Thomas just hoped he was getting a ride home, an Uber or something. He devoured the plate of snacks in record time and deposited his plate somewhere of no consequence.

“And another thing, Mr. Age-Of-Enlightenment,” Alexander pressed a convicting finger to Thomas’s midsection in what was supposed to be a threatening jab but ended up more like a weak poke. Thomas had at least a head and a half on Alexander, or at least that’s what it seemed like in his wine-drunk haze. Lafayette shuffled over from where they were dancing with John and took the wine from a protesting Alexander, muttering something about telling the bartender to cut him off as they retreated into the crowd again. 

“Let’s talk later,” Thomas said, patting Alexander on the head and taking his phone out to shoot Lafayette a text. Within seconds he had a reply back that made him pale slightly. He locked his phone and grabbed Alexander by the arm, dragging him from the crowd and into the cool night air. 

“Where we goin?” Alexander asked, confusion and wine thickening his words.

“I’m taking you home, and no, don’t make that face. I’m not gonna try anything funny. You can’t be trusted to get back to your apartment on your own and I don’t think you could find your left thumb without a map so we’re going to my apartment.” He laughed at the insulted look Alexander gave him when he finally processed his insult, crossing his arms defiantly and not moving without Thomas practically dragging him into the backseat.

New York City melted by in a mess of lights and colors. At some point Alexander had let himself drift off on the mountain of heat that was Thomas. At this point he was too drunk and tired to care all that much anyway. Thomas had a sudden realization and texted Lafayette to ask if Alexander was binding, physically relaxing into his seat when he was told he wasn’t. Within a half hour, they arrived at Thomas’s apartment. Within twenty minutes, Alexander was sound asleep in the guest bed with a glass of water and a few aspirin on the nightstand.

**5.**

Alexander wrung his hands in the edge of his shirt, fingers fidgety and heartbeat quickened. He couldn’t remember having been this nervous since, well, his last foster home. It’d been more than double his life since then. Here he was, 34, standing nervously behind church doors that threatened to swing open at any second. Here he was, 34, waiting behind thick oak doors to marry only the _president of the United States_ , one Mr. Thomas Jefferson. What could Alexander say? They said he’d be president some day. They were right, whoever “they” are.

Eliza fussed over his suit, the flower arrangement pinned to his lapel, the small adornments in his intricately braided hair. Angelica held back tears. Hercules and John were already wet-faced messes, dabbing at each others cheeks with handkerchiefs.

Lafayette came around in front of Alexander and took his hands in their own. He looked up and saw a reassuring smile, the same smile he’d seen 20 years ago when he was young and broken and afraid. With a kiss to the forehead, Lafayette whispered endearments and encouragements to Alexander. They tucked his shirt back into his pants, placed a bouquet of pink and white roses into his hand, and took their place arm-in-arm with John and Hercules ahead of him.

George took his right arm, Martha his left. The oak doors creaked open, pipe organ music flooded Alexander’s ears, and he was going to be ok.

**Author's Note:**

> yay thank u for readin. this kinda sucked bc. i wrote it at 2 am. finished around 4 am  
> also thomas's text to laf went like this:  
> thomas: hey alex is hardly able to stand can i take him to my apt  
> laf: try anything funny and ill cut your dick off <3  
> thomas: understood  
> \---  
> tumblr is autisticgod, twitter is mastertactlclan. lmk if u see any errors <3


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